I really should get a job. For a year I've been living on air, freelance work, and savings, and I'm tired of the schedule of no schedule. Of course, in order to get a job one has to look for a job, and in order to look for a job one has to update one's resume. I don't think there's any task more boring, more horrid, than writing a resume. In my last job I had to read plenty of resumes, so I can say with some authority that reading them is no more fun than writing them. Resumes suck.
I've always changed things on the resume around depending on the job to which I am applying, so that whatever aspects of my experience seems most relevant are brought to the foreground. What this means, practically, is hours spent reliving all the ridiculous and often boring tasks I've mastered at one point or another. Budgeting, for example. I was good with my budget in that I spent all of it every year. If you don't spend it all, it gets cut the next year. So every September I ordered office supplies, computer bags, crap I didn't need just to protect that particular budget line. Budget management means I'm good at spending money I don't have to.
"Managing support staff." That one means that I spent a year trying to get my assistant to show up for work one hour late rather than her preferred two hours late. This would work for about a week at a time. She'd arrive promptly at 10, then it would become 10:25, then 10:47, then we'd be back to two hours late, have a talk that would leave her mad at me, and begin the cycle all over again. I wonder if her resume features her experience "Managing Managers."
I was in charge of our company's crisis communications plan and in making sure that all of our offices had crisis communications plans of their own. This was mainly about PR crises, and was mainly about ensuring that only certain staff would talk to the press and controlling what would be said to the press, but the plan also had to include our potential response to various disasters. What would nuclear annihilation mean to our company? What statement do we make in the event of invasion by space aliens? If California drops into the Pacific, who is our spokesperson? I left the company before Katrina and was saddened to see that we somehow didn't make it into any of the press coverage since my planning had included responses to government indifference and incompetence (although I called that situation "acts of God").
Depending on the position my resume could also include planning and leading conference calls. Some days all I did was go from one conference call to another. Usually this was small groups, but sometimes I had to lead calls with 30 or so participants. Being on the phone with 30 people is a skill, believe me, particularly when you consider that 80% of those people were eating their lunch. At least it sounded that way. How do you compete with lunch? You can't, although on your resume you list your experience in "staff motivation."
Of course all work is cyclical. Some days and weeks I'd be incredibly busy, and then there would be days when I really didn't have that much to do. No one can know about any of this down time, however, or else you'll be given more work that you then have to delegate and oversee to completion. "Time management" becomes an essential skill. How do you make surfing the Web look like a work-related task? How many hours of solitaire can you play while pretending to write press releases? Without effective time management, you might end up actually busy all day, every day, and that's just not the desired measurable outcome.
The process of writing this post and thinking about my resume makes me see why I'd rather continue working for myself. If it weren't for paychecks and health insurance, would any of us go to an office five days a week? But the time has come, and I need to manage it. My resume awaits.
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Friday, September 4, 2009
Holiday, Celebrate
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Labor Day was originally intended to celebrate the social and economic contributions of the labor movement to American society. So thank you, labor movement, for getting everyone a day off of work. Thank you, labor movement, for a long weekend of back-to-school sales at which underpaid workers with no benefits must labor while the rest of us grill hot dogs. Thanks, labor movement, for either lengthening or shortening summer, depending when the first Monday in September falls. I'm celebrating American labor the best way I know how this weekend: by doing absolutely nothing at all. I'm watching some tennis, I'm reading a book, and I'm bidding summer adieu with the sloth I didn't have time, this summer, to enjoy.
Have a great holiday weekend, and I'll be back Tuesday.
Have a great holiday weekend, and I'll be back Tuesday.
Friday, June 19, 2009
A Brief History of Summer Jobs
The best thing about being an "adult" is the fact that you no longer have to look for and hold a summer job. Real jobs are bad enough; summer jobs can be awful, if you can even find one. My parents didn't care about me working during high school, probably because they didn't want to give me a car and wanted to ensure that I couldn't afford a car, but beginning the summer before college they were insistent that I at least try to work. I spent the summer after high school graduation at Dunn and Bradstreet looking up companies on microfiche, transcribing some assigned number next to each company's name, for eight hours a day, five days a week. Look up number, write it down, look up number, write it down. Soul-killing stuff, indeed.
The following summer I managed to find a six-week job helping out at a camp for kids with ADD. A friends' mother was on the board of the group that sponsored the camp, which explains why they hired someone with no experience working with such children, no interest in going into health or social services, and no real interest in children in general. I don't remember much from this experience except that it rained a lot, my main duty was handing out Ritalin, and I was miserable.
I spent the next summer in Kenya, much to my parents' chagrin, not because I was going off to Africa at a young age, but because it meant that I couldn't have a summer job. This was, of course, the best summer of my college years. Finally, the summer before my senior year, I got a job with the PA/NJ Bridge Commission. Every summer the Commission hired a certain number of college students to "help out." Really the whole thing was some sort of political kickback; I got the job because my mother spent months pestering our State Senator, who was some sort of family acquaintance.
I suppose EZ Pass has been the demise of this program; my job was to fill in for the regular toll-takers who were out on vacation. Whenever possible I worked the graveyard shift because traffic was light overnight and I could sit in the booth smoking and reading and listening to the radio for hours on end. It was the summer of 1984; if I never hear the song "Sunglasses at Night" again I'll die a happy woman. That summer the bridge was being painted, so traffic was down to one lane in each direction. During the morning rush, there could be quite a wait to get through the booth and across the bridge. Annoying thing number one: if I was the only female toll-taker, the truck drivers would line up at my booth, damn the long wait, just because they felt like seeing a woman. Annoying thing number two: every other car driver would ask, "When are you going to finish painting the bridge already?" During my next break, I'd respond, but traffic jams don't engender much of a sense of humor.
If there were no open toll-taking shifts, I'd be assigned to "help" with the office janitorial staff. Said staff was one woman named Toots. The office was a break room, conference room, storage room, bathrooms, and one large office occupied by the Commissioner. Cleaning the entire building only took Toots a couple of hours, and she didn't want any smart aleck college kid getting in her way, but she also didn't want the Commissioner to know how little work there was to be done. So, days when I was assigned to Toots, she would insist that I hide in the women's room. For the entire shift. 7 AM to 3 PM. Toots somehow managed to spend her entire shift hanging around the hall outside the women's room, and any and all attempts at escape were immediately foiled. She also insisted that I take my breaks with her, since she was "supervising" me (yes, I had scheduled breaks from my toil in the lavatory). I don't remember much about Toots, except that she did not like Gerladine Ferraro, did not like her at all.
Since college I've held jobs that I've loved and jobs that I've hated, but no jobs as random, no jobs as stupid, no jobs as memorable, as summer jobs.
The following summer I managed to find a six-week job helping out at a camp for kids with ADD. A friends' mother was on the board of the group that sponsored the camp, which explains why they hired someone with no experience working with such children, no interest in going into health or social services, and no real interest in children in general. I don't remember much from this experience except that it rained a lot, my main duty was handing out Ritalin, and I was miserable.
I spent the next summer in Kenya, much to my parents' chagrin, not because I was going off to Africa at a young age, but because it meant that I couldn't have a summer job. This was, of course, the best summer of my college years. Finally, the summer before my senior year, I got a job with the PA/NJ Bridge Commission. Every summer the Commission hired a certain number of college students to "help out." Really the whole thing was some sort of political kickback; I got the job because my mother spent months pestering our State Senator, who was some sort of family acquaintance.
I suppose EZ Pass has been the demise of this program; my job was to fill in for the regular toll-takers who were out on vacation. Whenever possible I worked the graveyard shift because traffic was light overnight and I could sit in the booth smoking and reading and listening to the radio for hours on end. It was the summer of 1984; if I never hear the song "Sunglasses at Night" again I'll die a happy woman. That summer the bridge was being painted, so traffic was down to one lane in each direction. During the morning rush, there could be quite a wait to get through the booth and across the bridge. Annoying thing number one: if I was the only female toll-taker, the truck drivers would line up at my booth, damn the long wait, just because they felt like seeing a woman. Annoying thing number two: every other car driver would ask, "When are you going to finish painting the bridge already?" During my next break, I'd respond, but traffic jams don't engender much of a sense of humor.
If there were no open toll-taking shifts, I'd be assigned to "help" with the office janitorial staff. Said staff was one woman named Toots. The office was a break room, conference room, storage room, bathrooms, and one large office occupied by the Commissioner. Cleaning the entire building only took Toots a couple of hours, and she didn't want any smart aleck college kid getting in her way, but she also didn't want the Commissioner to know how little work there was to be done. So, days when I was assigned to Toots, she would insist that I hide in the women's room. For the entire shift. 7 AM to 3 PM. Toots somehow managed to spend her entire shift hanging around the hall outside the women's room, and any and all attempts at escape were immediately foiled. She also insisted that I take my breaks with her, since she was "supervising" me (yes, I had scheduled breaks from my toil in the lavatory). I don't remember much about Toots, except that she did not like Gerladine Ferraro, did not like her at all.
Since college I've held jobs that I've loved and jobs that I've hated, but no jobs as random, no jobs as stupid, no jobs as memorable, as summer jobs.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Career Opportunities
As my loyal readers know, I've been on a fruitless search for a new occupation. Yesterday, that search ended. At long last, I have found a vocation. It all started with a trip to my local Aldi.
I'd never before set foot in an Aldi. I knew it was some kind of grocery store but it always seemed, well, scary. Extremely late model cars populate its parking lot. It lacks windows, looking like a repository for weird, sad, experimental foods. Its shopping carts sit chained together, mocking their potential users. I knew it was some sort of European chain, and I've been to grocery stores in Europe. Scary.
It turns out that Aldi is a medium-sized box filled with strange brands of cheap food. Munkin Dimes brand brownie mix, for example. BunKiss raisins. You get the drift. But they had actual Pringle's, in the largest can I've ever seen. Industrial-sized Pringle's, for about two bucks. It's a warehouse-type store, so once the boxes are stacked the employees have nothing to do but to sit at the cash registers eating Pringle's while they await customers. As I wandered the aisles looking for recognizable food stuff, the cashiers sat on stools sharing a can, gossiping in their bright yellow smocks.
Finally, I thought. A job for which I am qualified. My PhD provides few real-world marketable skills, but I can wear a yellow smock and eat chips made from dehydrated potato flakes just about as well as anyone. As luck would have it, Aldi was hiring. After a brief interview with Toot, the Assistant Manager and Cashier in Chief, I was hired and fitted for my smock. I'll even be making the minimum wage in addition to the Pringle's!
Sadly, my new schedule won't afford me time for frivolities like blog posts. It's an entire career change, and it's arrived none too soon. So, it's been nice sharing my thoughts this past year, but the time for thoughts is at an end. I'm a working girl now, with no time for the internets. If you're in the neighhborhood, though, stop by for some chips with me (and Toot). We'd love to sit with you and catch up.
Not even Wikipedia can state with certainty the origin of April Fool's Day or of the prank. The best guess is that some folks were a little slow to adopt the Julian calendar and continued to insist that April 1 was New Year's Day. These people were called fools. I've been called a fool for a lot less, so despite the cliche some things do change. Whether or not you've got a New Year's hangover, happy April Fools.
I'd never before set foot in an Aldi. I knew it was some kind of grocery store but it always seemed, well, scary. Extremely late model cars populate its parking lot. It lacks windows, looking like a repository for weird, sad, experimental foods. Its shopping carts sit chained together, mocking their potential users. I knew it was some sort of European chain, and I've been to grocery stores in Europe. Scary.
It turns out that Aldi is a medium-sized box filled with strange brands of cheap food. Munkin Dimes brand brownie mix, for example. BunKiss raisins. You get the drift. But they had actual Pringle's, in the largest can I've ever seen. Industrial-sized Pringle's, for about two bucks. It's a warehouse-type store, so once the boxes are stacked the employees have nothing to do but to sit at the cash registers eating Pringle's while they await customers. As I wandered the aisles looking for recognizable food stuff, the cashiers sat on stools sharing a can, gossiping in their bright yellow smocks.
Finally, I thought. A job for which I am qualified. My PhD provides few real-world marketable skills, but I can wear a yellow smock and eat chips made from dehydrated potato flakes just about as well as anyone. As luck would have it, Aldi was hiring. After a brief interview with Toot, the Assistant Manager and Cashier in Chief, I was hired and fitted for my smock. I'll even be making the minimum wage in addition to the Pringle's!
Sadly, my new schedule won't afford me time for frivolities like blog posts. It's an entire career change, and it's arrived none too soon. So, it's been nice sharing my thoughts this past year, but the time for thoughts is at an end. I'm a working girl now, with no time for the internets. If you're in the neighhborhood, though, stop by for some chips with me (and Toot). We'd love to sit with you and catch up.
Not even Wikipedia can state with certainty the origin of April Fool's Day or of the prank. The best guess is that some folks were a little slow to adopt the Julian calendar and continued to insist that April 1 was New Year's Day. These people were called fools. I've been called a fool for a lot less, so despite the cliche some things do change. Whether or not you've got a New Year's hangover, happy April Fools.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Career Institute
Cicadas have already arrived. It's mid-July, but summer has begun its slow fade. I've sold my business, and I gave myself the arbitrary deadline of Labor Day to decide what I want to be when I grow up. I get up every morning determined to determine something and then get distracted by the day, by the Times and by the pool, by whatever reading I'm doing, by a warm evening on my porch. I watch dusk come just a little earlier each evening, hear the cicadas, know something has to be decided, sigh, and turn back to the pages of my book.
What will I be when I grow up? All I know is that my friend's pool beckons. Maybe life is just randomness. If I let it go, something will come to me. That's my hope on a morning in the middle of July.
What will I be when I grow up? All I know is that my friend's pool beckons. Maybe life is just randomness. If I let it go, something will come to me. That's my hope on a morning in the middle of July.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
till Tuesday
I've had a busy couple of days finishing the editorial for what will be the last issue of my magazine produced under my direction. Yep, I sold it. Yep, I need to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. Yep, I'm not worrying about any of that just yet. At any rate, I haven't posted the past few days because I've been working. Tomorrow, some kitsch: I'm off to the Kutztown Folk Festival, which for some reason I've never before attended. Here's the question of the hour: approximately how many feet from the car will I have to walk before encountering the first piece of funnel cake?
I'll be back Tuesday with the answer.
I'll be back Tuesday with the answer.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Employment Journal, Part I
I read in yesterday's New York Times that even though we might expect the current economic "slowdown" to last several years, we don't need to worry about a repeat of the Great Depression. According to the economists interviewed, unemployment levels will never again approach the 25% of the early 1930s. The worst we can expect, according to this article, is that people will have to start selling their possessions on eBay. How reassuring.
I realized that I have no idea what the employment situation in eastern Pennsylvania might be. I know that it's taking people a while to find professional positions; I know that if I were to put together a resume and look for a position in marketing or publishing it would probably take me a while to find something. But what if my situation were more dire? What if I needed a job, any job, as soon as possible? I've decided to find out.
I thought about doing a Nickeled and Dimed kind of thing and pretending that I have no education and am simply looking for a job in the service sector, but that's been done. I've decided to be who I am, with my education and with my actual job experience, and to pretend that I've been unable to find a while-collar position and that I'm in search of whatever work I can find.
I have a PhD in English. I taught at the college level for seven years, then left academia and worked in PR and marketing for eight years. Almost five years ago I started a local publication. For the past four years I've edited and published that magazine and been a freelancer and consultant in marketing communications. I've decided to leave out the freelance parts of my resume, and to tell potential employers that my business has gone under and I need work while I get on my feet again. I will say that I've been looking for a professional position but haven't been able to find one and just need a job.
I've never worked in a restaurant, or in retail. The first part of my quest is to see if there are in fact any jobs around here to be had, the second part is to see if anyone would hire me. What if my scenario were the truth? What if I had my mortgage and my bills to pay and my business and my savings were gone? Would I be able to find enough work to keep me out of foreclosure?
Today, I'm going to the malls. I figure I'll start my quest with retail. I'll let you know tomorrow what, if anything, happens.
I realized that I have no idea what the employment situation in eastern Pennsylvania might be. I know that it's taking people a while to find professional positions; I know that if I were to put together a resume and look for a position in marketing or publishing it would probably take me a while to find something. But what if my situation were more dire? What if I needed a job, any job, as soon as possible? I've decided to find out.
I thought about doing a Nickeled and Dimed kind of thing and pretending that I have no education and am simply looking for a job in the service sector, but that's been done. I've decided to be who I am, with my education and with my actual job experience, and to pretend that I've been unable to find a while-collar position and that I'm in search of whatever work I can find.
I have a PhD in English. I taught at the college level for seven years, then left academia and worked in PR and marketing for eight years. Almost five years ago I started a local publication. For the past four years I've edited and published that magazine and been a freelancer and consultant in marketing communications. I've decided to leave out the freelance parts of my resume, and to tell potential employers that my business has gone under and I need work while I get on my feet again. I will say that I've been looking for a professional position but haven't been able to find one and just need a job.
I've never worked in a restaurant, or in retail. The first part of my quest is to see if there are in fact any jobs around here to be had, the second part is to see if anyone would hire me. What if my scenario were the truth? What if I had my mortgage and my bills to pay and my business and my savings were gone? Would I be able to find enough work to keep me out of foreclosure?
Today, I'm going to the malls. I figure I'll start my quest with retail. I'll let you know tomorrow what, if anything, happens.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
On Boredom
I read somewhere once that the average American changes careers four times, the average American woman seven times. I'm assuming the higher number for women has to do with time off to have kids, although I haven't had any children and right now I'm contemplating career number four. I can only speak for myself and will say that the reason for the career changes is incredibly easy to pinpoint. I get bored. What's odd is that I've managed to make several careers out of doing things I love to do, things I willingly do in my spare time. Why then do I get bored once those activities become tied to my income?
Here's another way of looking at it. When I'm at home, I never get bored. I can amuse myself endlessly reading, writing, watching a movie, talking to the dog, whatever - a day goes by before I know it. Move my butt to an office, though, and the very same activities - surfing the web, or writing copy, or even making phone calls - become torture. I spent the last couple of months at my last corporate job staring at the wall most of the day, dreaming of quitting. And now I spend some time every day staring at the wall, dreaming of what I'll do with my life next.
Boredom is undoubtedly a large component of all lives, and one that gets little attention. No one wants to admit to getting or being bored; it feels like a failure of will, or of imagination. And it feels selfish, given the quality of contemporary lives and the variety of amusements available to us. Slaving 12 hours a day in a sweatshop wouldn't leave much leisure time for boredom, after all. In that sense boredom is a commodity available only to those who can afford it. I should be thankful that I have the luxury of my ennui.
Or is that not it at all? By that theory, a homesteader would have never been bored because of the continuous labor involved in building and keeping the home, and in growing and harvesting crops. The single mother who works three jobs in order to pay the bills would never be bored. The manual laborer would never be bored. Yet accounts of homesteading include discussions of the relentless loneliness and boredom associated with life lived in that kind of isolation. I have a diary kept by a Pennsylvania farm wife at the turn of the last century and reading it makes evident the fact that she was incredibly bored even though her days were filled with labor. Perhaps boredom is simply part of the human condition.
Perhaps the problem is that we are meant to live in packs, traveling together and subsisting communally. Once we decided to break off into smaller family units and stay in one place to raise crops it was all over for us. Maybe we're meant to be constantly on the move. Hunting and gathering doesn't make much sense these days, so I may as well just keep changing careers.
Here's another way of looking at it. When I'm at home, I never get bored. I can amuse myself endlessly reading, writing, watching a movie, talking to the dog, whatever - a day goes by before I know it. Move my butt to an office, though, and the very same activities - surfing the web, or writing copy, or even making phone calls - become torture. I spent the last couple of months at my last corporate job staring at the wall most of the day, dreaming of quitting. And now I spend some time every day staring at the wall, dreaming of what I'll do with my life next.
Boredom is undoubtedly a large component of all lives, and one that gets little attention. No one wants to admit to getting or being bored; it feels like a failure of will, or of imagination. And it feels selfish, given the quality of contemporary lives and the variety of amusements available to us. Slaving 12 hours a day in a sweatshop wouldn't leave much leisure time for boredom, after all. In that sense boredom is a commodity available only to those who can afford it. I should be thankful that I have the luxury of my ennui.
Or is that not it at all? By that theory, a homesteader would have never been bored because of the continuous labor involved in building and keeping the home, and in growing and harvesting crops. The single mother who works three jobs in order to pay the bills would never be bored. The manual laborer would never be bored. Yet accounts of homesteading include discussions of the relentless loneliness and boredom associated with life lived in that kind of isolation. I have a diary kept by a Pennsylvania farm wife at the turn of the last century and reading it makes evident the fact that she was incredibly bored even though her days were filled with labor. Perhaps boredom is simply part of the human condition.
Perhaps the problem is that we are meant to live in packs, traveling together and subsisting communally. Once we decided to break off into smaller family units and stay in one place to raise crops it was all over for us. Maybe we're meant to be constantly on the move. Hunting and gathering doesn't make much sense these days, so I may as well just keep changing careers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
